I am told that following my talk about voluntary work in the rural areas of Zimbabwe somebody - who attended one of our meetings for the first time - asked. "What has that got to do with local history?"
The answer is "Absolutely nothing". And whilst local history is a major consideration with us we are not confined to it. To quote from the Society's constitution:
'The aims and objects of the Society shall be to encourage the study and practice of history and allied subjects, which shall include matters of historical interest, both indigenous and international...........'
We operate over a very broad field in accordance with the information obtained when, at our first meeting in March 2011 we asked members to complete a form which asked 'What do you want us to talk about'. The input covered a wide range, from military history, tracing of ancestors, to the history of Southampton Football Club. We do recognise there is a strong interest in local history, and have some talks lined up which will take care of that. We are also keen to develop our members interest in Hollybrook Cemetery, Southampton, of which more in due course.
Another of our aims is to record the experiences and stories of our members, so when at short notice we were stumped for a speaker at our January meeting I agreed to start this off, by throwing something together and talking about my experiences as a volunteer worker in Zimbabwe which included, but not exclusively, working with Scouts and Guides who came out from the UK to work on clinics and schools in rural areas - way out in the bush. a long, long way from the towns and cities.
I talked about how I was the 'Man on the ground' when the Scouts and Guides of Cleveland, U.K. built and equipped two double class room blocks at Dingani School, Dete, Matabeleland North, and among other things showed a picture of the bush pump, about 1 km from the school, which was its only source of water.
Although I am not too sure how many of our members here in UK read this blog, I do know it is read in South Africa and in Australia. (I must remember to thank my daughters), and as a result of my posting about Dingani School on this blog I received an email from a gentleman whose home is right in Dingani Village, and who works on a major project in Hwange National Park in addition to doing much to help the local community. A fantastic contact and I must ask his permission to use his name on this blog.
What I have learned from our Dingani contact is that the school now has piped water on an irregular basis and needs £500 to install a 5 000 litre water tank so as not to be reliant on that bush pump about three quarters of a mile from the school.
Just by discussion with others we already have five people willing to donate to the cause before even advertising it, but not having anything to do with history it is outside the remit of this Society to handle the donations, nor are we a registered charity, so we cannot handle the donations through our own bank account. We are in contact with outside sources and will 'make a plan'
This will serve to illustrate how we are keen to assist our members in developing and furthering their personal interests in whatever subject it happens to be. This is in line with our seeking to help alleviate the social isolation of elderly people in our area. We want to hear about their experiences and interests, and get them involved again.
Not everybody is willing, or even able to stand in front of a meeting and hold forth on their pet subject. The way we will handle this is to talk to them in advance, get the story down on a digital voice recorder, then write it up into a 'script' (Our chairman, the Rev. Robert is very good at reading from scripts, improving on them as he ad-libs), put some pictures on a DVD, and 'interview' the member at a meeting. We are an informal Society and very relaxed and friendly in our approach to things.
I do know of one of at least two of our members who have some interesting stories to tell about the old days in Hampshire, which I hope will appease those who ask 'What has it got to do with local history'
By the way, I took a line out of context as a header for this bit of blog' What Georg Hegel said was:
"What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history.....".
I rest my case.
John G
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